Utusan Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, 21 February 2000

Forum

Guru rotan murid tidak ikut peraturan (Teacher flouted rules when caning schoolboys)

[Unofficial English translation below]

Saudara Pengarang,
APA yang ingin dimaklumkan ialah pada 2 februari lalu lebih kurang pukul 2.30 petang saya telah pergi ke sekolah anak saya, untuk menjemputnya pulang.

Semasa saya di sana, saya amat terkejut apabila melihat seorang guru disiplin yang juga seorang ustaz memukul 2 orang pelajar dengan menggunakan rotan.

Apa yang memeranjatkan saya ialah cara guru itu merotan murid tersebut seperti dia memukul seekor binatang iaitu merotan 2 orang pelajar lelaki tersebut di tengah belakang dan juga di tengkuk seolah-olah melepaskan geram.

Saya sungguh kesal melihat cara ia merotan kedua-dua pelajar tersebut di hadapan saya dan juga pelajar-pelajar lain.

Apa yang saya tahu bahawa Kementerian Pendidikan telah membuat satu garis panduan bahawa pelajar boleh dirotan hanya di bawah paras pinggang dan juga di tapak tangan.

Sedangkan guru berkenaan pula merotan kedua-dua pelajar tersebut di tengah belakang dan juga di tengkuk.

Adakah ini satu arahan baru yang dikeluarkan oleh Kementerian Pendidikan?

Saya ingin mengingatkan kepada guru itu, bagaimana perasaan beliau jika mendapat tahu yang anak beliau sendiri dirotan seperti itu, mungkin beliau sendiri akan marah dan membuat laporan ke Jabatan Pendidikan Negeri atau ke Kementerian Pendidikan.

Walaupun saya bukan penjaga bagi kedua-dua pelajar lelaki itu, saya merasa marah dengan cara tindakan guru tersebut.

Sepatutnya beliau, sebagai seorang ustaz harus memberi nasihat secara psikologi dengan membaca ayat-ayat suci agar pelajar tersebut merasa insaf dan bukan dengan memukul pelajar seperti binatang.

Saya ingin memberitahu,janganlah cuba merosakkan nama baik guru lebih-lebih lagi yang bergelar ustaz.

Saya juga berharap Kementerian Pendidikan dapat mengambil berat tentang perkara ini supaya tindakan kepada guru tersebut dapat diambil kerana cara beliau merotan pelajar itu seolah-olah seperti satu penderaan kepada pelajar berkenaan. - DARI WAKIL PENJAGA SIMPATI, Alor Gajah, Melaka.

Teacher flouted rules when caning schoolboys

To the editor, Dear Sir,

On 2 February at about 2.30 in the afternoon and I went to my son's school to pick him up and bring him home.

While I was there, I was very shocked to see a discipline teacher who is also a religious education teacher beating two pupils with a cane.

What astonished me was that the teacher caned the students as though he were beating an animal: he caned the two boys in the middle of the back and also on the back of the neck as though in a rage.

I was extremely sorry to see the two schoolboys being caned in this way in front of me and also other pupils.

As far as I know the Ministry of Education has issued a guideline saying that schoolchildren can only be caned below the small of the back and on the palm of the hand.

Yet this teacher actually caned the two schoolboys across the back and on the back of the neck.

Is this a new instruction from the Ministry of Education?

I would like to remind this teacher how he would feel if he heard that one of his own children had been caned in that way; he might be angry himself and report the matter to the Department of Education in his own State or the Ministry of Education.

Although all I am not the guardian of the two schoolboys concerned, I am angry at the way the teacher acted.

As a teacher of religion, he should have given them advice been a psychological way by reading them morally uplifting verses from the Koran, so that the pupils would feel sorry for what they had done, rather than beating them like animals.

What I would say to him is stop trying to destroy the good name of teachers, especially those who bear the title of religious teacher.

I also hope the Ministry of Education will take this affair seriously so that some action can be taken against the teacher concerned, as his way of caning the pupils was a physical abuse of them.

From a representative of concerned people who feel sympathy, Alor Gajah, Malacca.